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REPLY 



TO 



LORD ERSKINE 



BY AN ELECTOR 
OF WESTMINSTER. 



V 



J^C LONDON : d 

PRINTED FOR W. HONE, LUDGATE-HILL. 



1819. 
Price Is. 6rf. 



John M'Creery, Printer, 
««* -HowCourt, London. 



&* 



>^ 



REPLY 



TO 



LORD ERSKINE. 



Electors of Westminster, 
A Pamphlet has just made its appearance, 
intituled : — 

" A short defence of the Whigs against the 
imputations attempted to be cast upon them 
during the late Election for Westminster." 

The Pamphlet has been attributed to Lord 
Erskine in a way which leaves no doubt as to 
his being the Author. 

The imputations to which the title-page 
alludes appear to be two, and they are thus 
introduced :— " That Mr. Hobhouse, sup- 
ported by Sir Francis Burdett, opposed //^PRE- 
TENSIONS of the Whigs of England to any 
favour or support from her people, as being ;" 
1st, cc a corrupt and profligate faction, which 
had abjured all the free principles of the Con- 
stitution 5 and," — 2 nd, " had abandoned the 
cause of Reform, which they had once SO- 
LEMNLY pledged themselves to support." 

B 



The first imputation is, as it stands in one 
sentence, somewhat obscurely stated : it con- 
tains two assertions; first, that the " Whigs 
are a corrupt and profligate faction," this is 
clear enough ; the second, that they " have 
abjured all the free principles of the constitu- 
tion, " is couched in the usual parliamentary 
jargon, which is generally as unintelligible to 
those within, as to those without the house, 
and may be made to mean any thing the 
speaker pleases. If it may be understood to 
mean, that the Whigs are charged with being 
enemies to the freedom of the people, that 
charge, as well as their being * c a profligate 
faction" and having Cf abandoned the cause 
of Reform, which they had once SOLEMNLY 
pledged themselves to support" shall be fully 
proved. 

It may, perhaps, be as well to say a word 
or two here, to prevent misapprehension as to 
the application of the term Whig : it is in- 
tended to apply it to the party who form the 
present Opposition, within and without the 
two Houses of Parliament; but, more par- 
ticularly to that in the House of Commons. 

No person, at all acquainted with those, 
who compose this party, will hesitate to pro- 
nounce that individuals may be found among 
them, whose private characters are exem- 
plary : many there are, as well Tories as 
Whigs, who, individually considered, are most 



respectable as gentlemen and scholars ; and 
the only matter for surprise is, that such men 
should be found acting in their respective 
parties, as if wisdom, honour, and honesty, 
formed no ingredients in their characters. 

To be clearly understood, it is necessary to 
go a little into the history of the Election -, 
and, to state — that the Report made on the 
9th of February last, by the committee ap- 
pointed by yourselves to conduct the Election of 
Mr. Hobhouse, and the speech of Mr. Hob- 
house on the same day, were the causes of 
the virulence of the Whig Faction, as you 
saw it displayed during the Election ; it could 
not bear the truth to be spoken even in part, 
and feared the consequences ; it knew that 
from the moment the people should really un- 
derstand its views, all hope of wresting the 
Government from the hands of the present 
Ministers, its primary object, would be hope- 
less. 

The course pursued by the faction for se- 
veral years past, proves that it thought the 
people were blind to its true character, and it 
was prepared to appeal to the people in sup- 
port of its fictitious character, by fraudulently 
pretending that it had been the cause of Mr. 
Hobhouse's return for Westminster, had that 
gentleman walked over the course ; this was 
prevented by the report of your Committee. 
If the report of your Committee had not de- 
prived the faction of the means of deception, 



it would, through the press, and by the oppor- 
tunity it has of addressing itself to the public 
in various ways, have made a merit of return- 
ing Mr. Hobhouse; it would have demanded 
of him, an unqualified support of its party 
measures, and it would have branded him as 
an ungrateful, unprincipled apostate, had he 
opposed any of them. It would have put a 
cheat upon the Reformers ; it would have 
gained character with the country by its du- 
plicity, and have done injury to reform by its 
dishonesty. 

The Report, and the speech of Mr. Hob- 
house, at once prevented the faction accom- 
plishing either of those unworthy purposes; 
disappointment deprived it of reason — it could 
contain its rage no longer, and it precipitately 
plunged into a contest which has happily 
drawn upon it the attention of the whole 
body of the People, and has enabled a very 
large portion of them fully to appreciate its 
false pretensions. It has convinced them, 
that there is no real difference between the 
Whig and Tory factions, except the dif- 
ference which always existed ; namely, that 
the Tories would exalt the kingly power, 
that it might trample upon the Aristocracy 
and the people ; while the Whigs would es- 
tablish an Aristocratical oligarchy to tram- 
ple on the king and the people. There never 
was, nor is there now, any other difference 
between them : both alike would subject the 



people to their arbitrary dominion ; and both 
alike deserve what the one has long had, and 
the other has at last obtained — the contempt 
of the people ! 

The nomination of Mr. Lamb was the act 
of the Whigs — it was the avowed act of the 
party, and it seems so to have been consider- 
ed by the noble Author himself. The address 
of Mr. Lamb on the day of nomination, may 
therefore be fairly considered as the address of 
the party — and a more flagrant attempt at 
imposition was hardly ever made ; the nomi- 
nee of the faction had nothing to offer for 
himself, and the faction had nothing to offer 
on his, or on their own part; it sought to 
cajole you by a general declaration, as un- 
meaning as it was insincere, of adherence (we 
must suppose) to the publicly avowed princi- 
ples of a most respectable man, who had never 
laid down any principles ; and this was all in 
the way of profession, or explanation, which 
the faction ventured to lay before you. 

But they seated Mr. Lamb : — how did they 
accomplish this ? 

By an appeal to the sense of the people ? 
No: 

By any offers of service to the public ? 

No: 

By pledging themselves to pursue measures 

to improve the condition of the people ? 

No: 

By undertaking to use their efforts to re- 



duce the overwhelming burthen of taxation ? 
No: 

By proposing to destroy the demoralising 
and oppressive Excise Laws ? No : 

By promising any REFORM OF PAR- 
LIAMENT ? No : 

By any one proposition beneficial to the 
people ? No : 

What, then, have they done which the most 

inveterate Tory would not have done? \ 

Nothing. 

In what, then, consists the difference between 
the two factions in respect of the people ? 
—In Nothing. 

The Whigs have procured a seat for Mr. 
Lamb, and they affect to call it a victory ; a 
victory, if it were one, gained over the peo- 
ple. They however know that it is not a 
victory. Had they indeed obtained a victory, 
their conduct would be the very reverse of 
what it is ; the uneasiness they exhibit — the 
mean personalities they indulge in — the petu- 
lant and angry feelings they continually ex- 
press ; — all prove, that so far from having sub- 
dued the people, or gained character for 
themselves, they are conscious they have 
sunk, never to rise again. 

They have procured a seat for Mr. Lamb — 
by what means ? 

By a coalition with the Tories against the 
people : 

By a coalition with the very party, which 



during the former Election, supported Captain 
Maxwell against them : 

By the power of their purse : 

By undue influence of all sorts : 

By terror — by promises — by threats — by 
compulsion : 

By taking advantage of the poverty of the 
times, to seduce those they could not inti- 
midate : 

By an alliance with the very refuse of 
society : 

By — as it is stated in your petition to the 
House of Commons — 

cc By hiring ruffians to intimidate the elec- 
tors, and to obstruct the Poll ; 

By treating; 

By partiality on the part of the returning 
officer :" 

By all the base arts which formerly dis- 
graced Westminster, and which you had 
driven away. 

In seating Mr. Lamb, while they manifest- 
ed their own unworthiness, they materially 
assisted in promoting the very cause they 
coalesced to destroy. 

The country need scarcely be told, that an 
individual more or less on the side of Reform in 
the House of Commons, however desirable in 
some respects, is of small importance in com- 
parison with such an opportunity as the late 
election afforded, of unmasking and exposing 



the people's enemies, and thus rendering 
them comparatively harmless : thus teaching 
the people to depend on themselves. This the 
faction begins to feel ; and, as it has no weapons 
of reason with which to continue the combat, 
it resorts in its agony to those of personal in- 
vective, abuse and calumny. 

The Whigs would indeed address them- 
selves to the very people against whom they 
coalesced, but they know not how to address 
them with effect. A feeble effort has how- 
ever been made by Lord Erskine, in praise of 
himself and the Whigs, which has the merit, 
and it has no other, of keeping their misdeeds 
out of sight. 

The noble Lord would persuade the people, 
to apply the isolated measures which the 
Whigs in former times pursued in favour of 
the people to the Whigs of the present day ; 
to the degraded, despised aristocrats, whose 
conduct you so lately witnessed ; and he 
would have the people forget all their atro- 
cious acts against them. 

He praises the revolution of 1688, and in- 
sinuates most falsely that the Whigs are now 
willing to bring back the government to what 
it was then made : he praises the Bill of 
Rights as a second Magna Charta, but he 
takes care not to acknowledge that the Whigs 
rendered this second Charter of no avail to 
the people: he does not inform us that the 



9 

Bill of Rights was only a declaratory Statute 
in the nature of a preamble to other statutes, 
which ought to have been made to carry its 
declarations into effect, which statutes the 
Whigs took care should never be made. — He 
does not say that the Whigs rendered all the 
declarations of that statute null and void : he 
does not tell us, that in 1688, and for five 
years afterwards, Parliaments were of right 
ANNUAL or rather SESSIONAL, as they 
had for many centuries been, and that every 
departure therefrom was a stretch of arbitrary 
power, under the name of prerogative; he 
does not tell us, that the Whigs proposed a 
bill to make them triennial, and that it was 
not until the sixth year from the revolution, 
that for the first time in this country, Parlia- 
ments could by LAW be continued for three 
years.* 

He does not tell us that the Whigs made 
the act, to continue themselves in poiver for 
SEVEN YEARS, f when they had only been elected 
for THREE YEARS— nor that THEY called 
those who opposed that act Tories — nor 
that they put a cheat upon the people, who 
expected the bill would expire with the 
Whig parliament which made it — nor that the 
people throughout England made bonfires for 

* Stat. vi. W. & M. c. 11. 
t Stat.i.G. I. Stat. ii. c. 38. 
C 



10 



joy, when that parliament expired. He has 
not told us, that the Whigs formed and esta- 
blished the Excise Laws as they now exist — 
nor that they commenced the destructive 
Funding System — nor that they first made it 
death by law to forge the paper of their Bank ; 
neither has he once told us, that all the great 
grievances of which we justly complain, origi- 
nated with the Whigs, who under the pretence 
of a love of Liberty have stabbed it more fre- 
quently and more deeply than the Tories 
themselves. 

The noble Lord professes to be in favour of 
Reform, and would seem to insinuate, that he 
prefers the plan of the M Friends of the People ;" 
but he presently declares, that all the reform 
he seeks is the disfranchisement of one or two 
rotten boroughs. 

He praises the Whigs for their efforts in 
1793, and he condemns you for doing the 
same thing in your Report. 

He complains of perverseness in the re- 
formers, because they have not become apos- 
tates ; he condemns them because they still 
continue to repeat the substance of the peti- 
tion, which the author himself and Lord Grey, 
brought into the House of Commons : Whig- 
like, he praises and condemns the same thing, 
in the same breath. 

He praises the " Society of the Friends of the 
People" j and some of its proceedings well de- 



11 

serve all the praises which have been bestowed 
on them : but do the Whigs of the present 
day support or approve of those proceedings? 
Let their whole conduct from the moment 
they broke up that society, answer for them. 
In 1793, the Society of the Friends of the 
People presented their justly celebrated Peti- 
tion to Parliament. It was supported, by 
order of the Society, by Mr. Charles Grey and 
the Hon. Thomas Erskine. On the 30th of 
May, 1795, at a general meeting of that 
society, W. Smith, Esq. M. P. in the chair, 
<c it was resolved, after due consideration, to 
publish a DECLARATION," in which they said, 
that the " right of voting should be subject 
to a qualification so moderate, that there may 
be no condition in life in which it may not 
be acquired, by labour, by industry, or by 
talents." They said their plan would extend 
the right of " suffrage to nearly a million and 
a half of heads of families ;" and they <c admit 
the general right of voting at elections to be 
COMMON and PERSONAL." They say, " it is 
undoubtedly desirable, for many reasons, that 
the collective body of qualified electors should 
be as NUMEROUS as possible; but principally, 
because a great number of electors is of itself 
a better security against corruption, than the 
severest laws against bribery, by making the 
individual vote of no value, and hardly worth 
soliciting. That to reach the numbers, by 



12 

whom the power ought to be exercised, it 
must be EQUALLY AND IMPARTIALLY DISTRI- 
BUTED over the whole surface of the kingdom, 
by a new division of the country." They 
add, " to us it appears, that a new division is 
indispensable, and that we should only cheat 
ourselves, and deceive the nation, if for the 
sake of a useless accommodation, we yielded 
to any project in which this condition was 
not included. " " The whole measure must 
not only be equal to the whole of its purpose, 
but it must move together, and act at once 
with all its force s" and then they say, they 
will have the whole Reform or none ; any thing 
short of the plan they propose being not only 
useless but pernicious. 

They proposed " To divide England into 
513 divisions, as equal as possible ; to elect 
one member in each division : and to take 
the election of the whole representation of the 
kingdom at the same hour and on the same 
day." 

They said " That a general election for the 
whole kingdom might be conducted without 
tumult or expence, and completed in a few 
hours; and that in future the elections might 
be TRIENNIAL, BIENNIAL, or even ANNUAL, AS 
THEY WERE IN FORMER TIMES. — Members of 
parliament who acted faithfully, would be 
generally re-chosen; but it is neither safe 
nor constitutional to leave any Representative 



13 

very long out of the reach of his Constituents." 
The noble author calls his pamphlet a De- 
fence of the Whigs. What a miserable de- 
fence is that which is obliged to leave all 
these matters unnoticed, and to rest itself upon 
a declaration of " The great difficulty of sud- 
denly originating and maturing any syste- 
matic and general change in the Represen- 
tation." 

The society of the Friends of the People 
say, " After long deliberation we have fixed on 
a specific plan and declared it without re- 
serve."— Yet we are now told that we would 
" Suddenly originate and mature a plan j" 
and for this we are to be condemned by the 
Whigs, by those who having abandoned all 
their former pretensions, stare with wonder at 
discovering that they are no longer popular. 
They were popular when they were REFORMERS. 
— They are hated by the people now they 
are nothing but WHIGS. 

He tells us that the " criminal, dangerous, 
and licentious acts" of some of the reformers, 
induced the government in 1794 to seize their 
papers, and to imprison some of their persons ; 
that the Whigs on that occasion were ser- 
viceable to the cause of freedom, by their 
opposition to the proceedings of ministers. 
This praise will be denied them by no man, 
but it is after all only a negative service they 
rendered to the country ; they had themselves 



14 



set the example of constituting Corresponding 
Societies, and they had met over and over again 
in convention, as " deputies from counties 
and towns" ; had in that capacity published 
resolutions, and a declaration* quite as " licen- 
tious" as any published by the British con- 
vention, or by either the Constitutional or 
Corresponding Societies, although his Lord- 
ship now chooses to stigmatise the one as 
cc criminal and dangerous," while he passes 
over in silence the act of the others. 

Too much praise can never be given to 
the noble author, for his exertions during the 
State Trials in 1794. — No one will ever grudge 
the splendid triumph he obtained on the 
acquittal of Mr. Hardy, after a trial of nine 
days, when in the month of November, and 
during one of the heaviest falls of rain ever 
witnessed in this country, he was drawn 
by the populace from the Old Bailey to his 
residence, accompanied by the acclamations 
and benedictions of perhaps as large an as- 
semblage of the people, as ever were collected 
together on any occasion whatsoever. But 
every one must regret, that this very circum- 
stance, which elevated him to a height he 
would otherwise never have reached, did not 
prevent him from becoming a member of an 
administration, which we shall prove to have 

* Vide Wyvir* Political Papers, vol. i. p. 109, p. 426. 



15 

been by far the most pernicious of any this 
country ever saw. 

The noble author applauds the Whig and 
Grenville Coalition ; he praises the Whigs for 
having abolished the Slave Trade; but he says 
not one word on the other acts of their admi- 
nistration, atrocious and " profligate" as those 
acts were. 

Let us take a rapid glance at their acts and 
deeds in the one short year of their adminis- 
tration, and thus in some measure supply the 
deficiencies of the noble author. 

Lord Grenville was one of the fathers of the 
act to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act — the 
Gagging Act — the new fangled Treason Act — 
the principal promoter of the war against 
human freedom in 1793 — the unrelenting per- 
secutor of reformers at all times 3 yet from the 
love of power, and desire of emolument, the 
Whigs bowed down under the peopled adver- 
saries, and submitted to be picked out man 
by man by Lord Grenville. 

With the Grenvilles and the Windhams, 
with those whose most conspicuous attribute 
was a furious rage against all reform, they 
made common cause. 

They reprobated the system pursued by 
Pitt, and Grenville, and Windham, and Dun- 
das ; they called that system " ruinous, in- 
quisitorial, execrable, diabolical, destructive 
of liberty ;" they said insurrection against it 



- 16 

was a duty, the performance of which duty 
was merely a question of prudence ; yet they 
took place under the Grenvilles to carry on 
the very system against which insurrection 
was a duty. 

They talked of the extravagance of the Pitt 
and Grenville administration; — of the enor- 
mous load of debt and taxes which bent the 
people to the earth ; yet no sooner were they 
in power than they added large sums to the 
debt, and increased the taxes enormously. 

They called the Income Tax, a tax " worthy 
only of the inquisition" — yet they raised that 
" highwayman's tax" from 6| to 10 per cent. 

They said * " a man had it in his power 
to make such alterations in his expenditure 
that the TAX would not ENTIRELY crush 
HIM ; he might in some measure relieve himself; 
if he lived on the FIRST FLOOR, for instance, HE 
MIGHT REMOVE TO THE SECOND; if he was on 
the SECOND FLOOR already, he might MOUNT 
to the ATTIC STORY" — he only who " was 
already found in the cellar" was alone to be 
exempted. 

They increased the assessed taxes. . 

They laid on no less than seven millions of 

* Vide Mr. Fox's Speech, Pari. Deb. vol. vii. p. 222. 
Whoever takes the trouble to examine the debates of the 
Coalition Parliament cannot fail to be struck with the con- 
tempt continually expressed for the people, and the high 
aristocratical notions which were as continually entertained. 



17 

taxes, which on the average of the preceding 
years, was twice as much as Pitt had laid 
on.* 

They taxed the income of widows and or- 
phans, and soldiers and sailors, 10 per cent. — 
They screwed one pound out of every ten 
pounds from their pittances, and they ex- 
empted the enormous property which the 
King had placed in the funds from all tax 
whatever. This money, which from its having 
been saved, was proved not to have been ne- 
cessary to support the splendour of the Throne 
— this money, therefore, unnecessarily wrung 
from the people in taxes — this money, which 
had been lent to the government to carry on 
wars and to promote corruption — for the inte- 
rest of this money they compelled the people 
to pay taxes. At the moment they exempted 
the King's money from the tax, they made 
every one else pay : they added no less a sum 
than 51,000/. a year to the incomes of the 
King's sons and daughters,! which Pitt had 
refused to do; they levied new taxes upon the 
people to pay this sum, because, as they 
would have persuaded the people, the King 
was himself too poor to provide for his 
children. 

* Vide the Whig Budget and the subsequent discus- 
sions — during their administration. Pari. Debates, vol. vi. 
p. 564 et seq. and vol. vii. 

f Stat. 46 G. III. 
D 



18 

Besides adding 6,000/. a year to the incomes 
of the Dukes of Clarence, Kent, Cumberland, 
Sussex, and Cambridge, they gave to those 
Dukes from the Admiralty Droits, (from the 
money which in fairness should have been 
divided among our sailors) no less a sum than 
75,000/. 

They who had vehemently condemned a 
profuse expenditure of the public money, 
when out of office, were more profuse and 
more extravagant than those they had justly 
condemned. 

They granted more pensions and to a larger 
amount; they crammed more hungry syco- 
phants with the public money,* than had ever 
before been done in the same space of time. 

They seized upon sinecures and all other 
corrupt sources of emolument for themselves 
and their followers, with a ravenousness, which 
surprised even the blood-suckers they pulled 
off. 

They maintained, that a sinecure office was 
as much a man's property as his freehold. 

They told the people, that Pitt's conduct was 
cc ruinous, destructive of liberty, execrable, in- 
quisitorial, infamous ; that the system he pur- 
sued justified rebellion :" but, when they got 
into power, they told the people, by the mouth 
of their leader, " that they never voted in their 
lives with more satisfaction, than they should 

* Vide Appendix. 



19 

do for the payment of Mr. Pitt's debts (with 
the people's money), because it was a tribute 
due to departed worth, the reward of a muni- 
ficent nation to a meritorious public servant." 
Thus treacherously and basely belying their 
own assertions — thus inhumanly extorting the 
substance of the people on account of him, 
whom they had declared to be the bitterest 
enemy of that very people. 

They made Lord Grenville (the co-adjutor 
of Pitt, the associate of him and Dundas in all 
their proceedings against the liberty, the pro- 
perty, and the happiness of the people) the 
auditor of his own accounts ! 

They made him first Lord of the Treasury. 

They made an act to enable him to hold a 
sinecure of 4,000/. a year, with a place of 
6,000/. a year. 

They made the Chief Justice Ellenborough,. 
a member of the King's cabinet council. This, 
so far as depended on them, was an attempt 
to destroy the independence of a judge. 

They placed a judge in a situation " to 
decide on bringing a man to trial in that very- 
court, where one of the ministers whom he 
had perhaps accused and irritated, would pre- 
side, and preside not merely to direct and 
influence the jury, but eventually, in his own 
person, to award the amount of his fine, and 
the duration of his imprisonment."* 

* Vide Speech of the Earl of Bristol^ Pari. Debates, rol. 
vi, p. 258. 



20 



Thus manifesting their hatred of liberty — 
their hatred of a free press; thus endeavouring 
to destroy both ; thus taking strides towards 
arbitrary power, which Pitt and Dundas had 
never dared to take. 

They attempted to levy a tax on the raw 
produce of the country — they proposed a tax 
on iron mines. 

They increased and extended the demora- 
lizing Excise Laws. 

They attempted to carry them into private 
families; by which, any man's house might at 
all times, both by day and by night, be in- 
vaded and searched by their myrmidons, and 
his utensils be locked up against him. They 
said, no man shall brew a barrel of table-beer 
in his own house, for his own use, but by 
our leave, and under the inspection of our 
exciseman. No man shall make a gallon of 
currant wine, but by our permission, and 
under the eye of our exciseman. 

They opposed the Bank Restriction Bill 
when out of place : 

They continued the Restriction when in 
place; and 

They opposed the Bill again when out of 
place. 

They commenced the Orders in Council, 
which almost ruined our commerce and ma- 
nufactures.* 

* Pari. Debates, vol. vii, p. 255, 523. 



21 

They condemned these Orders when out of 
place. 

They made an act to legalize the employ- 
ment of foreign mercenary troops in England, 
and they increased their number to 16,000. 

They made an act to indemnify those who 
had illegally employed them.* 

They, when out of place, condemned the 
Barrack system, as a system of abuse in all 
its parts ; they reprobated it as being highly 
destructive of freedom, by separating the sol- 
dier from the citizen. f 

They continued the system while in place. 

They reprobated it again when out of place. 

They said Hanover was a miserable paltry 
spot of sand, which had cost us in money 
many times the value of all its land and all its 
houses, and more lives than it contained peo- 
ple — they repeated, that it was a mill-stone 
about the necks of the people of England — 
they repeated, that it had been, and would 
be again, the cause of mischievous interference 
with foreign nations, and the frequent cause 
of war. Having, by truckling to Grenville, 
got into power, they said Hanover was as 
dear to us as Hampshire \ that we ought to 
go to war as cheerfully for the one as the 

* Statutes at large, 46 G. III. 
t Vide Mr. Robson's Speeches, Pari. Debates, vol. yii, 
p. 237, et seq. 



other ; and they declared no peace should be 
made until Hanover was restored. 

They reprobated and condemned Lord 
Wellesley's administration of India. They 
pledged themselves thoroughly to investigate 
his conduct; but when in place, they refused 
all inquiry. They hunted down the man who 
accused him, refused the papers necessary to 
enable him to substantiate his charges : they 
called upon him to prefer his charges without 
the documents; and when they could no 
longer withhold them, they told him to "pro- 
ceed at his peril." 

They made themselves popular by advo- 
cating Reform of Parliament ; sold themselves 
to the Grenvillites ; and stigmatized those who 
still sought Reform, with the name of Jacobins. 

They drew the bill to confine the people of 
Ireland to their houses, from sun-set to sun- 
rise, under pain of Military Execution. 

They left that bill as a legacy to their suc- 
cessors. 

They offered meanly to give up the Ca- 
tholic Bill, if the King would consent to re- 
tain them in office; but the King refused, 
and kicked them all out. 

Yet this is the administration Lord Erskine 
holds out to your admiration ! 

The noble author proceeds to a defence of 
Lord Grey, which is exceedingly weak ; all 
it amounts to is this, that his Lordship " is ao 



23 

longer a Commoner but a Peer, and that he is 
not prepared at once to propose the same ex- 
tended alteration in the Representation of the 
people as he had formerly proposed in the 
House of Commons." — Lord Erskine, no 
doubt, thinks this is a " defence" for the 
conduct of his noble friend, but if such a de- 
fence had been put forth by a Reformer, for 
one of themselves, the slang dictionary would 
have been ransacked for terms of reproach 
and contempt to heap upon the head of the 
" Apostate," as the Whigs would have called 
the one, and the ignorant wretch as they 
would have called the other: there would 
have been no end to their personalities. 

No man ever condemned the corruptions of 
the House of Commons, or its inefficiency to 
promote the freedom of the people, more than 
Earl Grey 9 no man ever proved the absolute 
necessity there was for a Reform of that House 
more than himself; and no man ever more 
completely abandoned all his professions than 
he has done. His speech on the 13th June, 
1810, was an uncalled-for declaration against 
all Reform and all Reformers. At the anni- 
versary in memory of Mr. Fox, he said, " / 
am not unwilling to say, that I think the House 
of Commons is, with all its imperfections on its 
head, one of the best securities the people of this 
country ever had for the preservation of their 
freedom" And of the same tenor are all his 



24 



su bsequent speeches on the question of Reform ; 
no one of his pledges has he ever redeemed, 
and his conduct can be designated by no sin- 
gle word, but the word he himself applied to 
the conduct of Mr. Pitt, when he called him 
" an Apostate." 

The noble author passes over the period 
from the time the Whigs were kicked out of 
office, in 1807, to 1817, without taking any 
particular notice of the conduct of the faction ; 
he says nothing of their defence of seat-selling, 
nor of their " rallying round the minister to 
prevent popular encroachment," on the cor- 
ruptions which were then exposed. He says 
nothing about the Corn Bill, which originated 
with them, and was passed principally for 
their convenience. He omits to tell us, that 
the leading Whig, Mr. C. C. Western, the 
mouth-piece of the Agricultural interest, as 
it is called, on the House being deluged with 
the petitions of the people against the Bill, 
said, " * He had no hesitation in stating, that 
popular clamour should be withstood;" that, 
"Not only the present administration, but 
any other must give way, if the WILL OF THE 
PEOPLE was to be uncontrollable ; he trusted, 
therefore, that the House would maintain its 
honour and character, by persevering in the 
course which it deemed to be right, and 

* Parliamentary Debates, vol. xxx, p. 26. 



25 



THAT IT WOULD NOT ALLOW ITSELF TO BE 
SWAYED BY PETITIONS, for the people might 
as well petition for the abolition of their liberties 
as for the abandonment of the measure under 
consideration, which involved their dearest in- 
terests. 

Great blame is thrown upon the Reformers, 
and great praise is bestowed upon the Whigs, 
for their conduct in 1817- The excesses, 
however, of that time ought not to be im- 
puted to the reformers, who did no one act 
beyond petitioning. In the few places where 
excesses were committed, they were produced 
by spies, some of whom were employed, and 
others encouraged to proceed in exciting the 
most wretched and ignorant of the people to 
commit acts of outrage. — His Lordship knows 
that those acts were not the acts of the re- 
formers, and that they ought not to have been 
imputed to them. 

It is true enough that many of the Whigs 
reprobated SOME of the acts proposed by the 
minister on that occasion, but it is equally 
true that the leaders of the party stimulated 
the minister to produce those acts. At the 
opening of the session, petitions for Reform 
poured in from all parts of the country. At 
this moment, there seemed to be two leaders 
of the Whigs — Mr. Ponsonby, the acknow- 
ledged leader, and Mr. Brougham, who was 
resolved at any rate to take the lead. 

E 



26 

A furious attack was made by the would- 
be-leader on the Reformers. — He was sup- 
ported by the Whigs, who vied with each 
other in the use of epithets of abuse: they 
called the Reformers — " wild, visionary, dis- 
gusting, malicious, disloyal, seditious, rebel- 
lious, demagogues, malcontents, liars, ene- 
mies of social order, incendiaries meditating 
civil war and bloodshed. " Their petitions 
were called a " farrago, vague, dangerous, 
impracticable, pernicious, intended to pro- 
duce incalculable mischief, inciting the people 
to revolt, and rebellion;"* more than a mil- 
lion of men, who signed these petitions, were 
thus calumniated by the Whigs, who, day 
after day, kept on inflaming one another, 
and producing a disposition in the House to 
proceed to measures of coercion, which, but 
for their conduct, would probably not have 
been attempted. On the 4th of February, the 
acknowledged leader, j* cc Mr. Ponsonby, said 
he was solicitous to ascertain from the noble 
lord (Castlereagh) whether it was or was not 
in his contemplation to proceed immediately 
on the subject (against those who were called 
disaffected), as in his judgment it was one of 
all others in reference to which any delay 
must be pregnant with public danger.*' (hear, 
hear.) Not only was the minister stimulated 

* Parliamentary Debates, vol. xxxii, p. 209, et seq. 
f Parliamentary Debates, vol. xxxv, p. 84, et seq. 



n 

by the Whigs to proceed against the people, 
but almost all of them came forward to dis- 
claim Parliamentary Reform, and Lord Er- 
skine himself, who now says, " I am myself 
as much devoted as ever to a Reform in Parlia- 
ment," said,* " He did not now hold the opi- 
nions he did when he signed a paper for PAR- 
LIAMENTARY Reform." Yet the noble Lord 
praises the Whigs for their consistency. 

No comment is necessary; the reader has 
already answered the question. Are the im- 
putations proved or are they not ? — Were they 
justly or unjustly made ? 

The noble author occupies nearly the whole 
of his 19th page with an endeavour to shew that 
the Electors of Westminster are too ignorant, 
to be able " to consider the claims of candi- 
dates to distinction and preference ;" " they," 
he says, " may fairly repose in the wishes 
of their BENEFACTORS, their EMPLOYERS, and 
FRIENDS ; and it is not corruption in enlight- 
ened men, who can see clearly the interests of 
their country, to use their influence with per- 
sons less qualified to investigate those sub- 
jects $" and this direct recommendation, to the 
one to buy, and the other to sell his vote — this 
recommendation of the influence of terror — 
this recommendation to the one to suborn the 
perjurer, and to the other to commit the per- 

* The Morning Chronicle, March 96, 1817. 



28 



jury — comes from a person who calls himself 
a Parliamentary Reformer : — truly this is sound 
Whig reasoning. The ignorance on the one 
hand, and the wisdom on the other, is assumed 
merely to justify the perjury : — truly this is 
sound Whig morality. And then it is asserted 
that there is no corruption in the transaction : 
— truly this is Whig honesty. 

The last act of the party we shall notice is 
their late combination under their new leader, 
Mr. George Tierney, who on one occasion 
confessed he was too poor to consent to be 
out of place. Some time before the meeting 
of Parliament, it was settled that Mr. Tierney 
should be engaged as the leader of the opposi- 
tion — Mr. Tierney the leader ! how miserably 
hare the Whigs degenerated ! — " RuMP," 
indeed ! Mr. Tierney the leader of opposi- 
tion ! However incredible this might be to 
the public men who flourished only a few 
years ago, could they hear of it, still Mr. 
Tierney is the leader. 

To make Mr. Tierney the leader, about 
120 members of the opposition signed a paper ; 
and a few more, who did not dare to sign the 
paper " because they represented populous 
places," sent in notes of accession privately : 
and thus was constituted as pretty a Combi- 
nation not to do any thing disagreeable to the 
new formed battalion marshalled by the Aris- 
tocracy as ever was entered into. No one 



29 

need wonder after this that no measure, which 
does not originate with one of the battalions, 
is entertained, or that any man, except your 
extraordinary representative Sir Francis Bur- 
dett, is heard, until he has enlisted into one of 
these battalions. 

The noble author tells us, his intention is to 
save the " Whigs from being considered, as 
objects of ridicule or reproach. " This is im- 
possible, when the very name ce stinks in the 
nostrils' 9 of the people. The term * c Whig" 
must now be dropped, and the party be 
henceforth designated as the party of George 
Tierney — the " Tierney-ites !" 

Much has been said about conciliation. 
The Electors of Westminster have always 
been ready to do every thing in the way of 
conciliation, which was not an abandonment 
of the principles they have all along sup- 
ported. But an attempt has been made to 
persuade the people, that because a man was 
called a Whig, he ought to be considered as 
one who supported a Reform in Parliament. 
It was necessary to put this false pretence in 
its true light, and to prove that the Whigs 
were not Reformers, and this you have made 
manifest to the whole country : that cheat 
will serve them no longer. Were the Whigs 
really Parliamentary Reformers, there would 
be nothing to conciliate; they would then, 



30 

like you, desire no other name by which to be 
designated. 

Under the most trying circumstances, near- 
ly 4000 of you have in the open face of day 
proclaimed yourselves RADICAL REFORMERS; 
you have thus given to the country a gua- 
rantee for future independent, manly, and ju- 
dicious exertions on the next occasion : you 
have thus encouraged the people to continue 
their exertions in the same good cause. 

The example you have set is producing, 
and will produce, the best effects all over the 
United Kingdom. 

The time is past, when party-men for mere 
party-purposes, can longer hope to obtain the 
aid of the people. 

The time is past, when a Combination of 
Aristocrats to trample upon the people, can 
by any contrivance avert from itself the in- 
dignation of the people. 

The time is past, when any assembly, whose 
acts are opposed to the interests of the people, 
can have any ground of hope for the counte- 
nance of the people. 

The time is rapidly arriving, when the con- 
tempt of the people for the corruptions of the 
House of Commons, will compel that house 
to attend to their request for a Radical Reform 
in the Representation of the people. 

The time is come, when it is more than 



31 

ever the duty of every man to adopt the re- 
commendation of Mr. Grey, now Earl Grey, 
made by him in 1794 — when in his place in 
the House of Commons, he said — " This 
House ivill never reform itself \ or destroy the 
the Corruption by which it is upheld, by any other 
means than those of the resolutions of the people 
acting upon the prudence of the House , and that 
point they could only accomplish by meeting in 
bodies as recommended by the minister (Pitt) in 
1782." 

The time will probably not be long before 
the Electors will be again called upon to ex- 
ercise their franchise, and this they will assu- 
redly do as honest men : they will then set 
another grand example before the country, 
by returning SIR FRANCIS BURDETT 
and Mr. HOBHOUSE, as their Representa- 
tives to Parliament. 



AN ELECTOR. 



Westminster, 
March 24, 1819. 



32 



POSTSCRIPT. 

SINCE the Noble Lord's pamphlet' was first 
published, a Postscript has been added to it, 
the sole object of which is to protect the most 
infamous corruptions in the Borough traffic. 

He says in cases where " a borough is the 
property of an individual and PROOF has been 
given to the House that a SEAT HAS BEEN SOLD 
FOR MONEY, it should be disfranchised. This 
would render the practice of it more dan- 
gerous, (he means it would make the parties 
more circumspect) and would keep SUCH 
TRANSACTIONS MORE OUT OF PUBLIC VIEW, 
which would in itself be a great point gained 
for the public s as NOTHING can be more un- 
fortunate than when ATTACKS on these accounts 
are made EVEN within the walls of Parliament, 
upon its title to trust and reverence, no satisfac- 
tory answer can be made to them." 

And this contrivance, this " KEEPING OUT 
OF PUBLIC VIEW," he says, would " exalt the 
dignity and character of Parliament: in 
other words, the dignity and character of 
the People!" 



APPENDIX 



The following is believed to be a correct account of the 
Whig job, in relation to one of the public offices ; and may 
serve as one from among the many proofs which might be 
adduced of the charge made against them in p. 18. 

ADDITIONS made to the Audit Office in Somerset Place, anno 

1806. 
One Chairman of the £ 

Board. r » . . . 1500 per annum, Sergeant Praed. 
Four new Members, 

each 1200 per annum, Anstey. 

Sarjeant. 

WlSHAW. 

Deare. 
One Secretary . . . 1000 per annum, Mallett, a Fo- 
reigner. 
Six Inspectors, each . 600 per annum, Mitford. 

Bourcerd. 

Noble. 

Mathias. 

Engleback. 

Hoffey. 
Four Examiners, each 260 per annum, Campbell. 

Petrie. 

Flint. 

Child. 
Four Examiners, each 150 per annum, Seymour. 

Kyland. 

Wilkinson. 

Scott. 

With numerous other appointments which increased 
the expence of this establishment from about ^U.OOO to 
.£38,000 per annum ; and, after all, the office was much less 
efficient than under the old and less expensive system. 



John M'Creery, Printer, 
Black-Horse-Court, London. 



JUST PUBLISHED BY JV. HONE. 



In Octavo — Price Eigkteen-pence, 

A LETTER 

TO 

THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 

ON THE SUBJECT OF 

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM. 

By GRACCHUS. 



3fn tlje prefix 
i. 

In Demy Octavo — Price 4s. 6d. sewed, . 

THE 

OCEAN CAVERN, 

A TALE OF THE TONGA ISLES. 

Oft, in my fancy's wanderings, 

I've wish'd that little Isle had wings; 

And we, within its fairy bowers, 

Were wafted off to seas unknown, 

Where not a pulse should beat but ours — 

And we might live, love, die alone. Moore. 



II. 

In Foolscap Octavo — Price 5s. 6d. in boards, 

THE 

AGE OF INTELLECT, 

OR 

CLERICAL SHOW-FOLK, 

AND 

WONDERFUL LAY-FOLK; 

A Series of Poetical Epistles between Jack Jingle in Town 
and Bob Blazon in the Country. With an Introduction, 
and Notes, Critical, Ethical, Topographical, Chronological 
and Astrological. 

By FRANCIS MOORE, Physician. 






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